


Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, and All That Jazz

by orphan_account



Category: Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey
Genre: i had fun with this, not quite personification but edging on that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It is September again.School should have started a month ago.But there sits Jerome Horwitz, silent, save for the soft scuttling’s of termites and the gentle wind that rushes in through the halls, rustling the peeling paint in a way that almost sounds like a smoker’s wheeze. Strange, squishy things, fuzzy things, grow in the gaps between the tiles of the bathrooms, through the vents that hang in chunks above what remains of the drop-down ceiling, home to so many other faster creatures that worm and crawl.





	Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, and All That Jazz

**Author's Note:**

> I was very much inspired by this video done by the BBC about the abandoned schools in St. Louis http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-41339060/the-revival-of-abandoned-us-schools?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook
> 
> And then my brain went to thinking, "Well... what DID happen to the school years later?" 
> 
> So here we are.
> 
> Thanks to Williamdewey and Jackie-sugarskull for looking over the draft!

      It is September again.

      School should have started a month ago.

      But there sits Jerome Horwitz, silent, save for the soft scuttling’s of termites and the gentle wind that rushes in through the halls, rustling the peeling paint in a way that almost sounds like a smoker’s wheeze. Strange, squishy things, fuzzy things, grow in the gaps between the tiles of the bathrooms, through the vents that hang in chunks above what remains of the drop-down ceiling, home to so many other faster creatures that worm and crawl.   

      That eat.

      That eat.

      It could be supposed, in that slow, sturdy way most things are usually supposed, that this is normal. Tiny living things eat much larger living things from the inside out. That’s what the usual beliefs about these things tend to be.

      Sometimes, it’s microbial organisms in a person’s gut.

      Sometimes, it’s carpenter ants.

      It all falls down the same way regardless.  

      And, again, in that slow, sturdy way that most things are supposed, it could be generally assumed that this- this would be fine.

      The dirt from which it had been raised, from which its bricks, its bars, its concrete had been raised, it would return to. The rest of the ceiling tiles would eventually rot away, the floors would give out. Some of the windows have already started to crack and a few had holes put through by a rock or two to speed the process. Surely, the rest will follow. It is only a matter of time.

      Everything must go back to its point of origin eventually.

      Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, and all that jazz.

      But memories, if you can call them memories, remain.They are more of a haze of vague feelings now, muttered faintly in sleep, skirting the edge of clear recollection. These things are the things that linger without voice or name on the very edge of consciousness like the slick humidity that constructs a mirage. They hold no substance. They are aimless.

      Even with the evidence left behind in the sketches and scratches that act like some piecemealed mural of heroes, it’s not like anyone would really remember what happened here.

      Too abstract.

      Too far-fetched to be even entertained as needing to be taken literally.

      There are just some things that you cannot make people believe, though unlike the moldering texts tucked away in cabinets whose keys have long since been lost, sometimes, those things are more real than anything else.

      It’s hard to tell that to the people who haunt the place though.

      They dig with the ants, with the mice, with the other creepy crawlies. The graffiti that has overtaken the classrooms? That is theirs. The tangle of chairs piled up in corners? That is theirs. They like to think they move within the walls as though they are somehow walking the line between this world and the next, but really, they are just lonely and looking for something real.

      However, if you try to tell them why there are so many shaky sharpie sketches of a man in his underwear, a kid to his left with a tie and a flat top, a kid to his right with a t-shirt and a bad haircut, they will not believe you.

      It’s not like anyone would care what ghosts think anyway.

      Jerome Horwitz doesn’t really bother with educating the younger masses of society anymore.

      Now, crows roost in the ceilings, the loudest but smartest squatters of any dilapidated compound, and they eyeball the ghosts like trespassers. They have faces that seem to read, ‘You’re not deep, get a job,’ but most people don’t read beaked faces, and so now, they have resorted to screaming at strangers who do so much as glance their way as they walk down the street. Of all the things that reside in that building, they’re probably the only to know what those shaky sharpie sketchiest mean. Again though, nobody cares, so what’s it matter?

      That stuff is for the birds.

      But.

      If there is one last locked drawer in that school holding all the answers, maybe you could convince them.

      Mind, there is no guarantee that such a locked drawer exists.

      And there is no guarantee that the contents, whatever it might be, would matter much to anyone who saw it.

      Such things are pure speculation, but speculation makes for such wonderful stories, and thankfully, stories, whether real or fantasy, have a ways of living forever, even long after the source of those stories has crumbled away.

      Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, and all that jazz.

      And before that moment, before that instant where you must crumble away, there is a silent pause within the still, a split second where you realize that the story will in fact outlive you. That the story will live forever.

      Even if Time will take the rest.

      And Time does take the rest.

      And Jerome Horwitz breaths out, rustling that peeling paint within its halls, wheezing like a smoker. In one last glorious exhale of plaster dust and leaves and grout and glittering haze, under the September moon, it is gone.

      Just like that.

      Gone.

      But Time cannot always bring itself to let beautiful things die, so darting between the moonbeams and the streetlamps on that steadily rising cloud of black feathers, the story catches flight.

      The story lives forever.

 


End file.
